Travel Behavior of the Urban Poor: A Comparative Study between Maputo and Nairobi

Abstract Commuters from poor households face increased challenges in their daily mobility in Sub-Saharan African cities, yet studies on their travel behavior are rare. Most poor individuals resort to walking long distances because they cannot afford motorcycles, bicycles, or even a single bus trip. Using person-trip data, this paper tries to investigate travel behavior of the urban poor through a comparative study between Maputo City and Nairobi City. The logistic regression results showed some similarities and variations among the factors affecting the travel behavior of the urban poor in Maputo City and Nairobi City. The likelihood of choosing Non-Motorized Transport (NMT) over public transport decreased with ownership of motorcycles and private cars in both cities. Surprisingly, gender had no impact on the likelihood of selecting NMT either in Maputo or Nairobi. This might indicate that men and women are equally likely to walk. Variations were observed with respect to the effect of age and residence location. For example, while the likelihood of selecting NMT is positively correlated with the residential location in Maputo, a negative relationship was observed for Nairobi. More explanations for these similarities and variations on the travel behavior are discussed in the article